Tinder C.E.O. Out After Five Months, Sean Rad to Return

Popular dating app Tinder has once again shuffled its leadership. Chris Payne, a former Microsoft and eBay executive, is no longer C.E.O. Tinder co-founder Sean Rad is returning to the position, one he held until this past March.

“It became clear after a few months that it wasn’t going to become a long-term fit. It’s only been a few months, but everyone came to the realization, the board and Christopher, and all agreed it wouldn’t work out long-term,” Tinder board member and Benchmark partner Matt Cohlertold Re/code’s Kara Swisher. “Given that, we thought we might as well take action on this sooner than later.”

Tinder has seen its fair share of management changes since it launched in 2012. Rad, initially vacated the C.E.O. role to become president after executives at I.A.C., Tinder’s parent company, grew concerned about controversies that had roiled the app’s team.

Last year, co-founders Justin Mateen and Whitney Wolfe left the company after Wolfe accused Mateen of sexual harassment, published his text messages as evidence, and sued Tinder. Wolfe and the company have since settled, and she went on to start Bumble, a dating app where women have to send the first message.)

In an article in the current issue of Vanity Fair on the state of modern dating, contributing editor Nancy Jo Sales interviewed a number of users of the app, many of whom characterized it as a tool for orchestrating hookups. In an extended string of tweets on Tuesday night, the company publicly criticized the article. In a statement the following morning, Tinder said it might have missed the mark. “Our intention was to highlight the many statistics and amazing stories that are sometimes left unpublished, and, in doing so, we overreacted,” the statement read.